Spring Planting

Sami finally found the Bonner Beste tomato seeds his mom sent from Finland (they were packed in a bag with computer stuff). Then he had dreams of a yard full of tomatoes and planted another 6 or 8 varieties. Most of these were from seeds we collected a couple years ago at the Tomato Tasting at Farmington Gardens. At that event there was also a contest for people to bring in their own tomatoes to be judged. Sami entered his favorite ones and won a book, Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades.

He also planted some of his favorite English cucumbers and about 5 kinds of basil, some oregano and other herbs. I was writing the names of the plants on popsicle sticks but then we ran out, so the last ones Sami planted will be a surprise.

There's a small section of grass near our patio that's nearly surrounded by pavers. We decided it would be difficult to mow (in more ways than one, I'll explain later) but it would be perfect for a kitchen garden. We had already dug up a patch for our strawberries and I dug up another small strip and transplanted some spinach, sorrel and swiss chard we had growing in pots.

We have a patch of bamboo growing behind our hot tub (which we still haven't used). I cut some and used it to make a trellis for our kiwi, Victor. I'll have to make another one for Pasha when I get a chance - he's the male kiwi though, so he probably won't grow as fast or as large.

When we first planted the kiwis a couple weeks ago we were looking for information on how to plant them and soil type and so on. We found a forum where people were talking about their problems with Arctic Beauty kiwis and someone said that cats had been eating and rolling around in their kiwi like it was catnip. However, we don't have a cat so we didn't think much about it. The next day Sami noticed that a lot of leaves had been broken off the kiwi and there were little footprints all around... definitely a cat. So we got some chicken wire and made little cages for them. We're hoping that the wire will keep the cats away until the kiwi vine is big enough not to be damaged. So far it seems to be working.

A few years ago my godmother Priscilla gave me a camping hammock. Until now, we haven't used it much because we didn't have a good place to hang it. I saw that there was a perfect space right near the patio between our fig tree and our pear tree.

We also bought and assembled a wooden patio set - 6 chairs and a round table. They're surprisingly comfortable even without cushions, although we may decide to get some later. We didn't buy the umbrella because we're thinking that there might be enough shade from the fig tree. We'll just have to wait and see. I'm waiting until we have a barbecue to post pictures of the patio set. Grape Hyacinths, Muscari armeniacum, have begun blooming in patches around our yard. We didn't plant them, but they're very pretty.

Now back to the lawnmower story. Saturday evening we went over to Sopan & Keren's house to visit and see the new baby Rivka. Sami also helped Sopan hook up the entertainment system in the den/guest bedroom. For some reason Keren and I haven't yet figured out, it took the two Phd electrical engineers 5 hours to do this. Anyway, Sopan & Keren have been reorganizing and getting rid of things so they gave us their old lawnmower. Our grass is seriously overgrown, (more than 6 inches) so I wanted to mow it first thing Sunday morning. The mower had been in storage for the winter, so I put new gas and oil in the mower and tried to start it. Nothing happened. I asked Sami to try. He did, it worked great on the first try. He turned the mower off figuring it would be no problem to start it again. We tried 4 more times on Sunday to get it started, but we never could get it started. Since then, we've learned that the pump to prime the engine doesn't work that well and it needs to be pushed a lot before the mower will start. I'll be trying that again this afternoon. I hope it works.

In addition to all the garden stuff we did this past weekend, we also cleaned all the boxes from the kitchen and living room. Our friend Eric came over and cleaned our cars (Yes, we pay him to clean a couple hours per week for us). The seals on my car are broken and it leaks. There was so much water in the trunk that the spare tire was actually submerged. We finally decided to drill holes in the bottom of the trunk so that the water that gets in can drain. It's very ghetto, but I don't want to be making car payments before I have a real job.

I wanted to make this post on Sunday evening, but we ended up crashing on the couch in our clean living room instead. On Monday the Energy Trust people came over to do an energy audit on our house. Unfortunately I was at work, so I missed it, but hopefully Sami will post the results of that. Today I have my "Spring Break", I have the whole week off school, but today is the only day I'm not working. It's looking sunny and nice so I think I'll make my lunch and eat it on our new table.